October 9, 2006 (log)

Another day, another fifteen hundred dollars poured down the drainhole of American Society in the form of cheap booze and expensive sex. Lucky for you, I'm on an expense account. An interesting twist, there - it takes cheap booze to really get to you fast. It takes expensive sex to really get to you at all.

But we're not here to discuss the vagaries of ongoing vendettas with accounting personnel (NOTE TO FILTHY ASSISTANTS: RETRIEVE HOME COORDINATES OF WORD ACCOUNTING HONCHO, STAT). No, we're here to talk about things somehow quaintly called 'news.' In this country, at this time, that's an overloaded term, but it's all we've got. Let's have a look-see...

Noth Korean nuclear test and resultant limp-dick jokes...nope. Endless handwringing about some Congresscritter and his prediliction for young fresh boycock - nah. Ah, here's one, brought to us by those same people that brought you the aforementioned Page Turning (over) scandal - CREW.

Apparently, CREW (I'll let you muckrakers find the website yourselves. If I can do it in my alcohol-fazed state, you should have NO PROBLEM) has submitted a FOIA request to the Secret Service (viewable at http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?view=164). What do these destroyers of honest Congressman's lives want now? That's easy. They'd like very much to know how often certain people visited the White House to meet with the Smirker and his chief bootlicks. When we say 'certain people' we mean those kind of Good People Who View Themselves as the Saviors of the American Moral Fiber- Right-wing evangelical Christian leaders.

Bear in mind that these are all leaders who are proud of the fact that they have influence in the current Administration; who endorsed our President as 'sharing their values' and who, in fact, have proudly trumpeted their association with our Fearless Leader. We would, therefore, expect that they would be either proud to tell us how often they visit him in his desmesnes, or, at worst, shy and retiring, too modest to advertise their influence and access.

No, indeed. Somehow, the curiosity about how often these folks visit our Great Leader (whose time, I would remind you, is paid for by your taxes whether you voted for him or not) seems to have stung someone, hard. It didn't take three sentences for one of those named's websites to reach the absolute apex of Evangelical blithering hatred: George Soros. Because, obviously, along with Bill Clinton he's at the root of all problems these days:

Aside from my family and staff, few people take much interest in my itinerary. A group misleadingly called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), however, has taken a sudden interest in my visits to the White House. The George Soros-funded interest group sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the White House asking for records of all visits I've made there since the inauguration of President Bush. The request also names eight other leaders of conservative Christian organizations, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Donald Wildmon. In a democracy, the government is expected to hear the views of various groups and individuals. However, CREW is implying that Christians should be locked out of the White House. While we have nothing to hide, CREW may have its own hidden agenda. CREW claims that on July 21 they sent the FBI copies of emails from Mark Foley to a 16-year-old former House page. Yet they waited until September 29--just over a month before the elections--to request a House Ethics Committee investigation into Rep. Foley. Such suspect timing is one of the reasons we have called for an investigation that includes the role of outside groups and why they withheld this information from the Ethics Committee and the public until now.

-from http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU06J05:

Ah, I see. Somehow a request to know how often they've visited a public official on the public's business is equivalent to "implying that Christians should be locked out of the White House."

Good fucking Adams and Jefferson, how long will you people let these idiots run around in charge of anything?

Stupid question. Apparently, indefinitely.

I'll spell it out for those of you on the Excessive Drooling Plan. These people don't want you to know how often they visit the President. Why would that be? Let's look at it.

Option one: They don't want their followers to know how little access they really have. Well, given that they seem to have numerous photo-ops with the man on a regular basis, I can't see that being an issue, somehow.

Option two: They don't want the nation as a whole to know how much access they have. Okay, in this case, that means that they understand that what they're doing is not the Will of the People, and hence is in jeopardy. That alone should raise a red flag, especially to those who follow them - if your own leaders are ashamed of their efforts, what does that tell you? Of course, you people also believe God shit the universe out of a giant queefing vagina in seven days of labor, so what the fuck.

Option three: The Smirker is in such a doghouse right now he's even dragging these folks' reputation with their brainwashed ilk down into the sewer. Ah, one can dream, but it would involve their followers being able to think as enlightened humans - i.e. form an opinion themselves - and hence seems about as likely as the Pope approving my particular branch of Titfuckers for Christ as an Official Purveyor of the Word of the Lord (by the way, Your Eminence, you can have fifty percent of the take, as well as auditioning privileges. We can make deals on boys or girls. Message me. -sj)

Option four: They don't want anyond correlating the dates of their visits with real-world events. That's one of the most interesting possibilities. It should make us even more suspicious. If that's the case, then they fear that their presence in the White House - which normally they seem so very proud to advertise - is, on certain days, a Serious Problem.

Guess what? The President is on my clock. I pay his salary. The Secret Service is my doorkeeper. They're not going to tell us what you said, folks - just that you were there.

Given how little anonymity you and the president seem to want to give ordinary Americans in their homes, on their telephones, and in the streets, not to mention on them thar internutz, guess what again - what goes around, comes around.

See, when you visit the White House, you have to sign the register so that the Secret Service knows you're there. You can't claim later that your rights were violated and that people made something private, public. Nope. You knew ahead of time that the fact, at least, of those visits would be recorded. So you don't really have a leg to stand on when objecting that they should not be made public.

This isn't a new position for these folks. Because, obviously, it's all part of a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, headed by George Soros and Bill Clinton, to...to...

...what?

Again, so what if the world knows how often you were in the White House? It's only ammunition for your enemies if you make like you've got something to hide, right? If you're innocent you have nothing to fear?

The only bright ray of light in this whole fucking mess is that some of the best summary reporting on the entire laugh-a-minute episode has been done by someone at Adult Video News, a publication dedicated to covering one of this reporter's favorite industrial expressions of the First Amendment.

What's even funnier, here (one needs to find humor, else life is pointless) is that the best diversion that the folks in the above quote can come with is the Foley scandal. It's a diversion in the sense that they attempt to smear CREW's motives. Not that I'm saying these are lily pure, simply because I don't know, but to back up their claim they use a truly outstanding piece of logic, namely that turning the Foley emails over the FBI and waiting for the FBI to do something about it is somehow reprehensible behavior. Indeed. The assumption that the arm of the Federal Government most charged with - and whose self-image is most historically concerned with - the treatment of children would in fact investigate is reprehensible. Because, note carefully- it's not that they turned over the messages when the FBI didn't act that has the above ranter so upset. Nope. It's that they waited until just before the election. Yes, I'm sure that you too wished CREW had waited another month or two to turn over those emails while Mr. Foley was making after-hours visits to the page dorms, correct?

By the way, lest you think that the Family Research Council does not have Sources Of Its Own, think again! As their president, Tony Perkins, tells Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball (ah, irony) on October 3:

PERKINS: Yes, I think there is, because in talking to some pages, you know—I‘ve had people now on staff that used to be pages, and it was widely known to watch out for [Foley], that he liked boys. And the question—and this question I asked ...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15128915/

Ah, I see, Mr. Perkins. It's a vast left-wing conspiracy. Yet people in your own employ, who therefore would have been in the Congressional circle (presumably) before this scandal broke, are telling you all about this nasty man and his "widely-known" reputation. Where, then, sir, were you and this source of information? Of course. Worrying about the fact that those were young boys, not girls - and, naturally, that this is one of the men who was your group's champions.